|
In 2013, life expectancy in the US was
78.6
years –
51
st
in the world and lowest among Western developed nations.
Central Intelligence Agency World Fact Book
There is about a
20
year gap between the U.S. county with the highest life expectancy (Summit, Colorado -
86.8
years) and the U.S. county with the lowest life expectancy (Oglala Lakota/Shannon, South Dakota -
66.81
years) which is about the same as the gap between the US and Haiti. For a list of U.S. counties with the shortest life expectancy rates and their major populations,
click here.
World Atlas
Life expectancy in the U.S. varies by income. For example, in 2010, the richest people in the country could expect to live to be
90
years old whereas the poorest people could expect to live be
77
years old.
Committee Generated from Health and RetirementStudy Data
Noncitizens contribute to the American safety net disproportionately to what they receive. Between 2000 and 2011, undocumented immigrants contributed between
$2.2 billion
and
$3.8 billion
more than they withdrew from Medicare Trust Fund each year. This created a total surplus of
$35.1 billion
over the
11
-year span, staving off Medicare insolvency.
Journal of General Internal Medicine
In the U.S.,
20%
of organs for transplants come from the uninsured, who if they need a transplant often can't afford it, aren't insured, or their insurance won't pay for it.
Health Affairs
Black women are
40%
more likely to die from breast cancer than white women, despite the fact that they develop breast cancer at the same rates.
American Cancer Society
25%
of adults without health insurance coverage say that they went without care in the past year because of its cost, compared to
4%
of those with health insurance.
55%
of uninsured adults do not have a regular place to go when they are sick of need medical advice.
Institute of Medicine
If being uninsured was a cause of death, it would be the
10
th
most common one in the U.S.
American Journal of Public Health
The U.S. is the only major Western economic power without universal health care system in which health care is considered a human right.
Commonwealth Fund
The health insurance industry in the U.S. employs approximately
500,000
people.
Statista
|
|
|
The Polaris Project reports that during the first
6
months in 2018, there were
19,000
human trafficking calls -- a
43%
increase over the same period in 2017.
|
|
|
According to the Center for Global Development, the U.S. scored last of the world's
27
wealthiest countries on foreign aid contributions and quality — despite being the largest donor in dollar amount. That's because in 2017, the U.S. allocated a mere
0.18%
of its gross national income for development assistance. That is well short of the
0.7%
that wealthy countries have committed to strive for since 1970.
|
|
|
65%
of terror attacks in the U.S. in 2017 were tied to racist, anti-Muslim, homophobic, anti-Semitic, fascist, anti-government, or xenophobic motivations.
National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism (START)
University of Maryland
|
|
|
How Inequality Kills
A 15 minute TED talk featuring, David Ansell, a physician, epidemiologist & health activist who worked for almost four decades in hospitals serving some of the poorest communities in Chicago. Looks at the health disparity between the well-off and the poor -- especially life expectancy -- and how it is the result of structural violence and injustice. He is also the author of two books: County: Life, Death, and Politics at Chicago’s Public Hospital and The Death Gap: How Inequality Kills.
Watch now.
|
|
|
3 Ways Businesses Can Fight Sex Trafficking
A 12 minute TED talk featuring Nikki Clifton, that outlines how businesses can help fight trafficking - from setting clear policies to hiring survivors - because the business community is in a unique position to educate and mobilize their employees to fight sex trafficking.
Watch now.
|
|
|
No Time to Lose: The Consequences of the Temporary Protected Status and Deferred Enforced Departure Terminations
A resource from the Catholic Legal Immigration Network, Inc. (CLINIC), that provides basic information about the Temporary Protected Status (TPS) and the Deferred Enforced Departure (DED)
programs; what the current administration is doing to them; and how terminating or reducing them will affect the U.S.
Read more.
|
|
|
What if the Common Good
Was the Goal of the Economy?
A 22 minute TED Talk, featuring Christian Felber who proposes an alternative to the sometimes inhumane, unstable and unsustainable – ruling economic model. Holds that a common good economy is post-dualistic, overcomes both capitalism and socialism, and is based on the values that make human relationships flourish: empathy, dignity, solidarity, cooperation, justice, and sustainability.
Watch now.
|
|
|
Fact Sheet – Churches and Hunger
A resource from Bread for the World, shows what churches and the government can and should do to feed the hungry -- particularly regarding cuts to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP, formerly known as "food stamps").
Read more.
|
|
|
The Enduring Myth of Black Criminality
A short animated video from The Atlantic, that looks at the enduring view of African Americans in this country as a race of people who are prone to criminality. It explores how mass incarceration has been used to deal with social issues in America such as mental illness, chemical dependency, unemployment & factory closings. The film looks at how racist bias was written into the constitution and how that has affected African American families throughout American history.
Watch now.
For more on the
Criminal Justice System
,
|
|
|
Dr. Martin Luther King Interview
A short video that features Dr. King explaining why black Americans face more obstacles than European white immigrants: "It's a cruel jest to say to a bootless man that he ought to lift himself by his bootstraps when many Negroes, by the thousands and millions, have been left bootless … as the result of a society that deliberately made his color a stigma..."
Watch now.
|
|
|
We Will Speak Out: Faith Communities Uniting to End Sexual Violence
A movement of diverse faith groups from across the U.S. joining with other leaders for action and advocacy to end the silence around sexual and gender-based violence. Their mission is to work at local, national and global levels to raise awareness, care for victims, encourage law enforcement and change a culture of tolerance and inaction. Offers research, sermons, statistics, trainings, webinars and related links.
Learn more.
|
|
|
The Sun Does Shine: How I Found Life and Freedom on Death Row
By Anthony Ray Hinton, Lara Love Hardin & Bryan Stevenson. A story of hope, love, justice, and the power of reading by a man who spent thirty years on death row for a crime he didn't commit. This memoir looks at the dramatic thirty-year journey and how a person can lose one's freedom, but not one's imagination, humor, or joy.
Read more.
|
|
|
The Alternatives to Violence Project (AVP)
AVP is an international association of community, school and prison-based groups offering experiential workshops in personal growth, community development and creative conflict management.
Learn more.
For more on the
Criminal Justice System
,
|
|
|
GoodLands
Mobilizing the Church to use its land for good. Provides information and tools to use property wisely and enhance existing ministries and missions — to care for creation, to end homelessness, to welcome the stranger, to deliver programs and services to the right places and at the right times, and to support its own fiscal sustainability.
Learn more.
|
|
|
A Concise Guide to Catholic Social Teaching
By Kevin McKenna. This third edition incorporates the essential teachings of Pope Francis in
Evangelium Gaudium
,
Laudato Si’
, and
Amoris Laetitia
to offer a beginner-level reference tool and study guide to help readers navigate the vast body of Catholic social teaching. Building on core themes of human dignity, community, rights and responsibilities, option for the poor, dignity of work, solidarity, and care of creation, it distills the material into summaries, each carefully referenced to its primary source and correlated to current issues. Includes teaching of the popes from Louis XIII through Francis as well as from the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops. Each chapter concludes with questions for reflection and dialogue and appendices provide tools for parishes and study groups.
Read more.
For more
Catholic Social Teaching
resources,
|
|
|
Moral Leadership for a Divided Age:
14 People Who Dared Change Our World
By David Gushee and Colin Holtz. Explores the lives of a few great moral leaders and the wisdom they offer today, such as Ida B. Wells-Barnett, William Wilberforce, Harriet Tubman, Florence Nightingale, Mohandas Gandhi, Malala Yousafzai, Martin Luther King Jr., Nelson Mandela, Oscar Romero, Pope John Paul II, Elie Wiesel, Mother Teresa, Abraham Lincoln, and Dietrich Bonhoeffer. Through stories and appraisals of their legacies, these exemplary human beings are shown to be gifted but also flawed. Each biography includes their historical context, unique faith, and lasting legacy to paint a picture of moral leadership in action.
Read more.
|
|
|
Living Gently in a Violent World:
The Prophetic Witness of Weakness
By Stanley Hauerwas and Jean Vanier. Explores the contours of a countercultural community that embodies a different way of being and witnesses to a new order―one marked by radical forms of gentleness, peacemaking, and faithfulness. The authors' explorations shed light on what it means to be human and how to live. Offers a synergy of ideas that could lead the church to a fresh practicing of peace, love and friendship. The expanded edition includes a study guide for individual reflection or group discussion.
Read more.
|
|
|
Land of the Free
A music video by The Killers, that touches on some of the issues of our time.
|
|
|
The Ignatian Solidarity Network will examine the current realities of migration during ISN’s first annual Virtual Ignatian Family Teach-In for Justice.
The virtual Teach-In is
free
and will take place live on
Saturday, March 2
from
12:15pm ET-3:30pm ET/9:15am PT-3:30pm PT.
Virtually join the Ignatian family across the U.S. for dynamic speakers, prayer, virtual networking, and shared reflection opportunities as we explore the realities of migration—both on the border and in communities across the country. The virtual Teach-In on migration kicks off the 2019 Ignatian Family Advocacy Month—focusing on coordinated advocacy efforts, standing together as a network for more humane immigration policies.
Presenters
:
- Pete Neeley, S.J., Associate Director of Education, Kino Border Initiative
- Marissa Montes, Esq. Founder, Loyola Immigrant Justice Clinic
- Aitana Libreros
- Pedro Guerrero
Watch it live or watch it later.
|
|
|
May your heart
break for what breaks God’s heart;
May your inmost being
be filled with the joy of compassion;
May your eyes, feet and hands
complete Christ’s work;
And may your soul
be a shining light for all the world to see.
|
|
|
Important Dates This Month
|
|
|
Individuals Honored This Month
|
|
|
February Birth Date Unknown
I prayed for twenty years but received no answer until I prayed with my legs.
|
|
|
Tragedy cannot be the end of our lives. We cannot allow it to control and defeat us.
|
|
|
February 4th
As far back as I can remember, I knew there was something wrong with our way of life when people could be mistreated because of the color of their skin.
|
|
|
February 4th
By judging others we blind ourselves to our own evil and to the grace which others are just as entitled to as we are.
|
|
|
February 7th
Without justice and love, peace will always be a
great illusion.
|
|
|
February 11th
Poverty is not an accident. Like slavery and apartheid, it is man-made and can be removed by the actions of human beings.
|
|
|
February 12th
The death of the forest is the end of our life.
|
|
|
February 23rd
What a world this will be when human possibilities are freed, when we discover each other, when the stranger is no longer the potential criminal and the certain inferior!
|
|
|
February 27th
There are many people ready to do what is right because in their hearts they know it is right. But they hesitate, waiting for the other person to make the make the first move - and the other person, in turn, waits for you.
|
|
|
Since we launched our website
23
months ago, we've had over
28
,000
visitors
, from
123
countries
.
with over
2,000
Resources including:
Films,
Publications, Organizations,
Facts & Figures,
Prayers, Quotes,
|
|
|
Each month we email our newsletter to about
4,000
people around the country. Each issue focuses on a social justice topic and has resources that have been recently added to our website. If you know of other
s who might be interested in receiving our newsletter,
please forward this email on to them or let us know and we'll add them to our mailing list. For past
Newsletters,
click here.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
